•  Greetings • 

Trigger warning: Poop.

Don’t worry. There are no pictures and I’m not going to talk about poop in overly graphic or cutesy ways. But if you hate poop, scroll on. In fact, maybe this isn’t your issue as we are also going to talk butts.

There are things I cherish more now as a witch than I did when I was a girl: Back health. Solid sleep. And good poops.

So, I was pretty crabby when, over the holidays, my butt business was all over the place. It was either nonexistent or just inconsistent and grouchy. We all know, like with a bad back or a bad night of sleep, when your poop is out of order, you are out of order.

With this in mind I went to my preferred Facebook food group to complain about how my gut ached every morning (yet how I was also unwilling to change my habit of chugging black coffee by the potful.) My friend K asked me if I’d heard about GG crackers, which are very trendy on Instagram. After years of yo-yo bingeing and dieting and subsequent years of therapy, I’m suspicious of anything that’s trendy and diet related. I don’t do keto or paleo or intermittent fasting or Whole 30. I’m suspicious of trends the internet likes in general. Like snail mucin and face masks. They’re fun and weird. But as effective as my unsexy prescription face lotion? Nah.

However, K is a literal medical doctor and I figured she wouldn’t steer me in the wrong direction so I ordered her dumb crackers.

Of course they work. I wouldn’t bother talking about them if they didn’t.

They’re bland brown crackers that are somehow crunchy yet not crisp: when you bite them, the bite mark remains perfectly instead of crumbling like most crackers. They taste, not unpleasantly, like nothing. My friends who have gotten turned onto the crackers top them with salmon or hummus or ham or avocado. I sometimes eat them with PB&J, although typically with cream cheese. It hits that sweet (by which I mean not sweet) spot of eating something in the morning when I have no appetite for anything.
 

And my poops? A+. The other day I almost took a photo of my abs to demonstrate how flushed out I feel despite this being the carbiest time of the year. Best of all, thanks to my GG cracker morning repasts, I can still drink my gasoline coffee without any ill effects at all I am fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not getting paid by the good people at GG to talk about their bland crackers. I just feel good now in the poop department and I think the world would be a better place if everybody else did as well.

Is there anything trendy you were suspicious of that worked for you in your life, poop-related or otherwise? Inquiring witches want to know.

May your poops be happy and your crackers flavor-free,
 

~ Claire

Beauty • Priorities

Current affairs • Nancy Pelosi: Evil Witch • By Cynthia Smith McCollum

It seems to be a pretty standard framing in political articles that Donald Trump behaves as a child, or more often, as a toddler. There’s even this guy who maintains a running Twitter thread on Trump-as-toddler (and he relies only on Trump’s fellow Republicans to talk about the Commander-in-Chief as if he needs a nap and his wubby.)

It’s also pretty standard when writing about professional, powerful women to center their experience as mothers, often diminishing their impressive professional accomplishments in the process. Ask the little lady about her favorite bake sale recipe, or her husband throwing his socks around, not why anyone who has crossed her isn’t available to provide a quote, (as her enemies are never heard from again.)

We sometimes hear from working moms that motherhood has taught them skills that come in handy at work—coddling fragile egos, patience in the face of irrationality, a radical leveling up of time management. Finding oneself capable of feats of strength like pushing a human out of a vagina and TCOB while meeting the many needs of small people and simultaneously dealing with chronic sleep deprivation can mean that other feats seem more manageable, too. It’s not entirely bullshit that there is some power to be found in motherhood, but it’s a line of thinking that is rarely pursued when we think about powerful women. It’s like motherhood is only used to make a woman look kinder and more frazzled and relatable, not more ruthlessly efficient, and never angrier.

I have been alternately pleased and irritated with the narrative surrounding the current chapter in our long national nightmare, aka the Trump Shutdown. Nancy Pelosi is clearly embracing the role of Mean Mom in this scenario, telling reporters that she’s a mother of five and knows how to handle a tantrum (as we all know, we don’t negotiate with terrorists or toddlers). Trump is already well-established as a toddler, and I’m happy to see that Nancy is taking all of the tropes about moms and using them to enhance her power. Everyone knows that while the toddler may be making a stink, kicking and screaming on the sidewalk, it’s the mom rolling her eyes 6 feet away who has the power. At some point she will jingle her keys and open the car door and that kid will get over his snit, hop up and climb into the car seat. Or she will pick his ass up and buckle him in. Either way, she’s driving.

Cynthia is a current Mean Mom and former Mean Teacher who works for an educational nonprofit in Texas.

Health • Ask the Witches • Butthurt

Q: I have a colorectal consult because having two babies ruined my butt. Have any of you done this? I feel like it's extremely rude that I'm not allowed to get drunk first.

B: I had three c-sections, no vaginal births, and three small earlyish babies, but I gained a ton of preeclampsia water weight with my third. This is how the butt doctor examined me: after talking to me, they had me kneel and rest the top of my body on the exam table—which had a special kneeling step thing. Then they covered my lower half with a paper sheet and had me pull my pants down (make sure you wear pants that are easy to pull down), and did a really quick exam of my butt.

They told me I had a fissure, and told me to use a nitroglycerin ointment to relax the area so that it would heal. After a few weeks, the cream hadn’t helped at all, so I had to have an outpatient procedure so they could knock me out and get a good look at things. They Botoxed the fissure to allow it to relax and heal, and snipped off three benign things. The Botox worked, no more pain from the fissure! However, it may have been a little too much Botox because I had some urgency issues for about a month, which was no fun. Worse, either the Botox or the snipping of tags or hemorrhoids or whatever caused a giant external hemorrhoid—which I did not have before. The external hemorrhoid was actually worse than the fissure and I couldn’t really sit for ten days. It turned out I had a huge (the Physician Assistant’s word) hemorrhoid supposedly caused by a blood clot. They could bring me back to the hospital to do sclerotherapy to it, but the PA said he wouldn't if it were him.

He said to take a lot a warm baths and, this is not a joke, put sugar on it several times a day because sugar is a desiccant. So I was basically home on bed rest for ten days with sugar on my butt because of the baby I had four years ago. Butt (ha!) the sugar worked. A year later I can sit just fine and rarely have any pain, but I'm pretty sure my butt is never going to be the same. I'm going to have to live with this mess for the rest of my life. The fissure is mostly healed, but not totally. I have realized that the only way to avoid future butt surgery is to take Miralax every damn day. FML. I would rather have one thousand vag exams.

K: I had some butt issues after baby and I went to my clinic, which is a teaching clinic, so I had an intern look at it and she was like "whoah" (which is not what you want to hear). Then some dude doctor came in and was good, but fucking hell it was awkward and I cried a sad little cry to myself in the car afterwards. And that night I drank a large glass of wine and took a bath.....and then I felt kind of better? #butttherapy

J: I had an anal fissure after my first baby. It's so embarrassing to have to mention it when doctors ask if I've had any surgeries. I usually can't get myself to write “anal” and just write “fissure.” It was the worst. But it was instantly better after the surgery.

F: I had this surgery pre-babies; many people in my family have, even though delicate booty tissue is supposedly not hereditary and we all eat lots of fruits and vegetables. My recovery was actually horrible and I was so glad I did it over the summer and not spring break. Since then I've been ok, even through two vaginal deliveries. And yes: good times putting surgical history on forms now. Once I just said "fissurectomy" over the phone to my OB's intake person, and she thought I said "hysterectomy" and was so confused. Also I've found that many of my lady friends have had booty problems and surgery. It really is so much more common than I'd assumed. However! This shit hurts and you want someone with finesse who knows what they're doing. My general practitioner at the time put a damn speculum in my booty and told me she didn't see anything. She referred me to a specialist because I was CRYING from pain. A resident can observe but you want the attending to do the exam.

J: Happens "all the time" but how many of us were warned that before getting pregnant?

Q: I strongly encourage everyone to explore postpartum physical therapy, no matter how long it has been since your baby was born! If it’s more of a hemorrhoid thing, I haven’t explored this issue much YET, but my mom friends swear Tronolane products provide the best relief. Solidarity and well wishes for your postpartum butthole.

M: Just gonna leave this here. I, uh, hear it's kind of amazing. It’s almost too nice for your asshole.

P: It adds insult to injury that the rectum is so close to the vulva and shares the pelvic floor muscles and birth injuries. It's bullshit. This is how I know God is a man.

Y R Spouses • Murder

Relationships • Quiz: Is this person worthy of a handmade gift? • By Liz Harvatine and Alissa Wright

As people who love to make stuff, we often find ourselves with a burning desire to give handmade gifts to everyone in our lives. This has resulted in some salty feelings when the recipients of said gifts were less than appreciative of the fruits of our labor.

We want to help you avoid this irritating situation. Answer the following questions truthfully, tally up the point values and your gift-making future will be revealed.

1. How do you know this person?

a. They are my ride-or-die bitch. (+50)

b. They are my friend. We have coffee once a month. (+25)

c. They are my friend. We were tight before I had kids and they didn’t. (-20, time to move on, sorry Carol)​​​​​​

d. I see them once a year at a girls’ night out, organized by a mutual friend, where we drink rose and paint identical moodlandscapes at a place called Paint ‘n’ Pinot. (-50)

e. They keep my child alive. (+40)

f. They keep my grass alive. (+0)

g. They are my child’s teacher. (+20)

h. They are my child’s beloved teacher. (+40)

i. I drew their name from a hat at work. (+5)

j. They are my boss. (+0, don’t be that guy)

k. They are my work spouse. (+30)

l. I am married to them. (+70)

m. They are my favorite family member. (+100)

n. They are my spouse’s second cousin once removed, by marriage. (-25)

o. They grew me inside of their body. (+100)

2. What is the occasion?

a. It’s Christmas! (+20, real talk: you’ve got tons of shit to do. Perhaps rethink this?)

b. A milestone birthday, like turning 21 or 40. (+80)

c. A regular old run-of-the-mill birthday. (+0, we get it, it’s their birthday, but they’re an adult)

d. It’s a holiday designed to celebrate this person. (e.g., Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, National Bank Teller’s Appreciation Day) (+25)

​​​​​​e. Just cause you love them so so so so much! *squee*, heart eyes emoji, etc. (+100, but you need to cool it a little bit)

f. They are getting married/had a baby/bought a house and you feel a deep sense of obligation. (+25 if you’ve got a lot of spare time on your hands, +0 if not)
 

3. How much do you enjoy making stuff?

a. I have hot glue in my veins. I dream in cross stitch. I am wearing a homemade maxi pad rn. (+150)

b. Making stuff is my version of self-care. (+75)

c. I like to keep my hands busy while I watch Real Housewives. (+15)

​​​​​​d. I’ve been known to make the occasional Halloween costume. (+5)

e. Ask my mom. I think I made a birdhouse in third grade. (+0)

f. Zero amount. (-500)
 

4. How much do they enjoy making stuff?

a. We spend all of our time together baking/knitting/sewing/talking about all of these things. (+50)

b. I feel like they had a crochet phase and I’m pretty sure they’ve contributed to the bake sale. (+10)

c. Huh, good question. I guess I don’t know them well enough to be able to answer that question. (-50)

d. That scarf they’re always wearing looks handmade? (+0)

e. They don’t even make dinner. (-100)
 

5. How upset will you be if your hard work and thoughtfulness goes unacknowledged?

a. I will repeatedly compose and delete an email asking them if they “like the tote bag I lovingly designed and made from fabrics that spoke to me of your essence?!?!?!?!” (-300)

b. I just make stuff for the joy of making it and I could give a fuck if they like it or not. (+0)

c. I will never forget. I will think of this on my deathbed. (-500)

d. I’d be kind of bummed but I guess they have a lot on their plate. (-10)
 

Scores:

150 or higher - Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

This person is a perfect candidate for your glorious handiwork. Make them a gift straight from your heart. If you’re lucky, you might get the same in return (not that that’s why you’re doing this *wink*).

61-149 - Make at your own risk.

This gift-giving experience could go either way. Make a gift if you really want to, but gird your loins against a negative (or nonexistent) response.

60 or less - Buy this chump a gift card.

Find out their favorite store if you’re feeling generous. Or don’t! Everyone loves Target.

Liz Harvatine and Alissa Wright have a podcast called Liz and Alissa Make Stuff. Follow them everywhere @lizandalissa.

• End Credits •

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This issue is brought to you by laying down. 

 • One Witchy Thing •